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Jack (2013)
Character: Olivia Chow
New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton was bilingual, glib, annoying, full of energy and always in front to the media. Growing up in a political family, Layton was a Toronto city councilor for 17 years and was head of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for a year. He became leader of the federal NDP in 2003 and the party became the Official Opposition for the first time in history. Then his health problems began.
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Whispers and Shoulders (2015)
Character: Specter
WHISPERS AND SHOULDERS An experimental short directed by Sook-Yin Lee Conceived by JOOJ (Lee & Adam Litovitz) Made from the raw footage of JOOJ's 'Shoulders and Whispers' music video, directed by Brandon Cronenberg & filmed by Karim Hussain, CSC. WHISPERS AND SHOULDERS appropriates and reworks the raw footage of JOOJ's 'Shoulders and Whispers' music video. The video's images are rendered voiceless, with figures adrift in suspended animation for a twenty-six minute hypno-poetic reconstruction that draws upon unused images from the original music video. The initial video, 'Shoulders and Whispers,' is a black-and-white three-minute pop-song artifact designed to grab attention with each shot a fixed duration with a slow left-to-right pan. No shot is ever repeated. It has a forward momentum, unfolding new dynamics and imagery; conversely, WHISPERS AND SHOULDERS embraces repetitiveness in richly-saturated colour.
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Rest and Relax (2024)
Character: Multiple Roles
REST AND RELAX is a film oddity about the anxieties of our time made by and starring artist/musicians Sook-Yin Lee and Dylan Gamble. Four stories explore life in the 21st century while surviving capitalism, sickness, and the internet.
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Toronto Stories (2008)
Character: Willia
Various lives intersect over the course of 48 hours in Canada's largest and most culturally diverse city.
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Escapades of the One Particular Mr. Noodle (1990)
Character: Narrator (voice)
A comedy of obsession and assimilation that charts the true account of a first generation Chinese-Canadian's attempt to fit into a white suburb. After an alienated childhood, she lands a job at an unpopular pasta bar, walking the streets as a 10-foot egg noodle. A transformation occurs when her new persona, Mr. Noodle, supersedes her own identity - only to confront a similar alienation as a noodle-human.
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Boys Night (2026)
Character: Ed's Mom (voice)
Todd and Skinny go to Prince Edward Island for a party. Tommy and Liz stay home.
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Five Bucks at the Door: The Story of Crocks N Rolls (2019)
Character: N/A
A documentary discussing the legacy and impact of the famous Crocks N Rolls bar, a music club in Thunder Bay, Ontario that featured many prominent artists throughout the 1980s. Numerous interviewees are profiled, as is the club's legendary founder and owner Frank Loffredo.
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Death and Sickness. (2020)
Character: Herself
Sook-Yin and Dylan are currently holed up in a house in Toronto capturing what happens on consumer cameras and mobile phones. Death and Sickness is a work of auto-fiction inspired by real-life events.
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Green Dolphin Beat (1994)
Character: Mai-ling
Two cops try to solve the murder of a former prostitute while fighting for their jobs in a crime-ridden precinct of a Northwestern city.
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299 Queen Street West (2023)
Character: N/A
During the rise of the music video era in the 80s, Canada launched "MuchMusic", a low budget TV network that revolutionized how the world's biggest stars connected with their fans and influenced the culture for the next three decades.
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Mood Indigo (1993)
Character: Jenny
Suspense tale -- a pilot to a prospective series -- involving a criminal psychologist, struggling to rebuild his life after his wife is brutally murdered by a patient, and a lady lawyer who enlists his help in solving a baffling crime.
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Close to You (2024)
Character: Emily
A trans man returns to his hometown for the first time in years. On his journey, he confronts his relationship with his family, reunites with a first love, and discovers a newfound confidence in himself.
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The Art of Woo (2001)
Character: Alessa Woo
Alessa Woo (Lee) is an ambitious art dealer who meets her match in gifted painter Ben Crowchild (Beach) in this romantic comedy.
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Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band (2008)
Character: Self (archive footage)
Undeniably one of the most important and influential gay music acts in the last twenty years, Pansy Division pioneered the "queercore" genre long before other gay musicians had the confidence to come out of the closet, and without major record label support or mainstream radio airplay. Using original and archive footage and covering over fifteen years as a group, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band is a fast-paced, intimate and humorous account of one of rock's most fearless acts. From their first days in San Francisco's underground music scene to a full-fledged stadium tour with Green Day and beyond, founding members Jon Ginoli and Chris Freeman overcome increasingly difficult line-up changes, prejudice and near-poverty to keep the band together and create music that has truly made a difference.
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Endless Cookie (2025)
Character: Radio Announcer
Exploring the complex bond between two half brothers — one Indigenous, one white — traveling from the present in isolated Shamattawa to bustling 1980s Toronto.
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Darkest Miriam (2025)
Character: Susu Leung
Miriam Gordon lives in a fog of grief while working in a downtown public library branch. When a burgeoning love affair coincides with her receiving a series of oddly threatening letters, Miriam's sheltered existence is cracked open.
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Shortbus (2006)
Character: Sofia
In post-9/11 New York City, an eclectic group of citizens find their lives entangled, personally, romantically, and sexually, at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality.
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Gifted and Challenged: The Making of 'Shortbus' (2007)
Character: Sofia
A look at the unusual process used in the making of the film Shortbus (2006) featuring interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips from the feature film. Director John Cameron Mitchell starts with the concept of using real sex in a film with a positive message. The cast of unknowns is selected from homemade audition tapes and then a callback audition workshop. More acting workshops are used to develop the characters and script. The project overcomes a number of obstacles and the rest of the film's development is followed up until its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
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A Fermenting Woman (2024)
Character: Marielle
On the brink of getting fired from her restaurant by new owners, visionary chef and master fermenter Marielle Lau (Sook-Yin Lee) develops an incendiary new dish with a bewitching ingredient she’s convinced will save her career.
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Bad Company (1995)
Character: Waitress
CIA operative Nelson Crowe is tasked with a deadly assignment: infiltrate a highly secret industrial espionage firm. Once inside, he teams with Margaret Wells, a master spy and seductive manipulator, in a plot to overthrow the organization's sinister president, which leads them into a darkly mysterious web of intrigue -- and shocking murder!
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3 Needles (2005)
Character: Tong Xiu, the Rice Farmer's Wife
A three-paneled look at the worldwide AIDS crisis: in Montreal, a porn actor schemes to pass his mandatory blood test; a young nun makes a personal sacrifice for the benefit of a South African village; in rural China, a black market operative posing as a government-sanctioned blood drawer jeopardizes an entire village's safety
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Boy Meets Girl (1998)
Character: Judy
Angelina is a shy and whimsical Italian waitress who has moved from Italy to Canada to fulfill a family vow by marrying a man she's not in love with. Angelina settles into a neighborhood in Toronto's Little Italy longing for true love. Mike is a jaded and cynical copywriter for romance novels but has lost his faith in romantic love. In the days leading up to Valentine's Day, an enigmatic and amorous couple named Il Magnifico and Mrs. Jones set the whole neighborhood ablaze with romantic passion. While everyone seems to be falling under the spell of Cupid's arrows, Angelina and Mike meet and just might find the true love that they've been searching for.
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Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Character: Kwahng-Yi
Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an 'internationally ignored' but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a 'beautiful gender of one'.
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